


Growing Up Pains

by byrhthelm



Category: JAG
Genre: F/M, Humour, Teenaged Daughter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 03:58:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byrhthelm/pseuds/byrhthelm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mattie wants to go on a date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Up Pains

A/N: Just a short fluffy ficlet, set in an AU where Jen left the navy at the end of her enlistment and went to work for AJ in private practice. Harm is back in the navy, happily married to Jen and they are in the process of adopting Mattie.

Jennifer Rabb let herself into the house just in time to see Mattie turn the corner at the top of the stairs and hear her feet thudding down the hallway, to be followed by, and she winced, the slamming of her bedroom door that could be felt, as well as heard throughout the house.  
Jen drew a deep breath. She was tired. She enjoyed working as AJ's Administrative Assistant and para-legal. The new office was beginning to get busy, but although there was some income being generated AJ didn't yet feel confident enough to employ any extra staff, so not only were the work-days getting busier, they were necessarily getting longer. And after a tiring day, Jen was in no mood to mediate in yet another argument between her stubborn husband and their headstrong adoptive daughter.  
Entering the living room she found Harm slumped in his armchair with a ferocious scowl on his face. "OK," she sighed in resignation, putting her purse on the side table and settling herself on the couch, "What's this one all about?"  
"It's Mattie! She... she wants to go to the movies on Friday!"  
"Yes..." Jen was frowning in puzzlement, "but Mattie often goes to the movies, with Susan, or Pattie, or..."  
"I know! But she wants to go with somebody called Terry!"  
"Uh... what's wrong with that?"  
"Terry is a boy! Mattie wants to go to the movies with a boy!"  
"Well, she's sixteen, and the movies are damn sight better choice than say a slumber party that 'accidentally' turns into a keg party..."  
"Maybe! But I still said no. She's too young!"  
"Harm, she's a teenager!"  
"Exactly!" Harm jumped out of his chair and pounded a fist into the pal of his hand.  
"Harm, be reasonable. Mattie's a teenager. Teenagers date. It's all part and parcel of growing up!"  
"There is no way - absolutely no way that Mattie is going to be allowed out on a date until she's thirty - at least!"  
"That's ridiculous," Jen retorted, but with a smile to take sting out of her words. Harm as an over-protective dad was just so funny, but so damn cute, and so damn ridiculous too. But funny and cute or not, Jen told herself, this had to be nipped in the bud. "Besides, how are you going to stop her dating when she goes to college?"  
"Dating? At College? Oh, my God! It just keeps on getting worse! That settles it; she's not going to college!" Harm was pacing the room, his making a slashing movement with his open right hand in wild exasperation.  
Jen bit her knuckles, in an attempt not to burst out giggling. She knew she was going to be sooo unfair, but the temptation was irresistible, "Anyway, it's not the dating that's the problem, really, is it?"  
Harm looked at her blankly, "It isn't?" What the hell was she saying, of course dating was the problem, the... the thought of Mattie and some spotty teenage kid - or worse some predatory college senior...  
"Of course not," Jen replied, with an innocent smile, "After all, we never dated, did we?"  
"We didn't?"  
"No, we never went out on a date at all. We just decided that we loved each other." Jen smiled at her husband's surprised tone.  
"Yeah, we did, didn't we?" Harm stopped pacing, and his face took on that sappy smile that Jen knew he wore whenever he thought of the two of them as a couple. "Perhaps that would be the best way with Mattie, to find a young man and decide to fall in love..."  
And then, with a smile that Machiavelli would have been proud of, Jen dropped her bomb, "Yes, we just decided we loved each, then we tore each other’s clothes off and jumped straight into bed!"  
"Jen!" Harm wailed in protest.

The End


End file.
